Love will tear us apart
by HedgieX
Summary: Based on the preview clip of the first episode of series three. Clive finally tells Martha the truth, but will they both be making a big mistake if they act on their feelings again, when they've already been torn apart by love in the past?


I am tremendously excited for the new episodes. It feels like we've waited forever, but now we're finally here. I don't have the time to commit to writing a multi-chaptered fanfic at the moment, unfortunately (although I want to continue 'Scarlett' at some point), but I thought I'd write a little, slightly rambly and soppy one-shot in preparation for the feels tonight. *gives everyone who's reading this a big fangirly hug*

Spoilers for the preview clip – which is on the Silk website if you haven't already seen it – but aside from those couple of minutes I have no idea what's going to happen in tonight's episode, so it's going to be quite amusing to see how far wide of the mark I am. The lyrics are from 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division, Martha's choice of song.

**Love will tear us apart**

"I love you."

She was angry and exhausted and more than a little bit drunk, and then Clive Reader had pressed his lips against her ear.

"Say that again," she said.

"I love you, Martha Costello."

She caught his hand and pulled him by the fingers towards the door. Under the archway of the entrance she kissed him, not caring about the colleagues who'd turned to gawp. They'd sniggered at her dancing, and would possibly wet themselves with laughter at the possibility of a relationship between an Oxbridge boy and a Bolton girl.

That was the thing about laywers, or one of the things. They'd lived for their jobs for so long that they'd forgotten about romance, they'd forgotten what it was like to love and trust someone as wholeheartedly as Martha loved and trusted Clive. Two Silks in bed together, imagine that.

Clive leant back from her, their fingers still entwined. She could taste him on her lips; his trademark cockiness and his disbelief at what was happening, his tobacco mingled in with her lipstick. "Billy is not going to like this."

"Well, bugger Billy."

She felt slightly dizzy. She couldn't tell if it was the angle she'd tipped her head at to kiss him – they'd withheld these kisses for so long, desperately fighting the chemistry – or the alcohol or the blasting music. Maybe a combination of all three. _We're changing our ways, taking different roads._

"Love will tear us apart," Clive sang in time with the chorus. He was a terrible singer, always had been, and like so many terrible singers he thought he was brilliant.

"Again," she said.

"Are you sure you want this, Marth?"

She didn't think she had ever wanted anything more. She physically craved him, his body against hers, _again_, his gentle kisses – so rough when he stood up in court, so gentle when he kissed her – on her lips and cheeks and collarbones.

"Yes. I want it."

He took the lead this time, pulling her with him. They only made it halfway up the corridor before they fell together again, up against the wall, his fingers playing with the straps of her bra through her shirt. His eyes were a tremendous blue, made fiery with passion, and his breath was all over her, disbelief and tobacco.

The music sounded tinny in the corridor. _Our respect runs so dry, yet there's still this appeal, that we've kept through our lives. _She leant her head back against the wall and brought her hands up to her face, feeling the indents in her palms, little crescent-shaped marks of his eagerness. She could see Billy in the darkness behind her fingers, the whole set of his face radiating disapproval. His voice laced with something like bitterness as he called her 'Miss'.

"Love's torn us apart before, Marth."

That was what frightened her. She'd fought the chemistry because she didn't want to make things awkward professionally and she didn't want to see Billy annoyed (he was like a father who wouldn't ever let go of his child, not even when she was nearing forty, and Martha didn't mind that, she loved that he cared about her) but it was more than that. She'd been pregnant with his child – such a tiny thing with limbs, a heartbeat, and nails as perfect as its father's – and then she'd lost it. She had been in love with both Clive and their tiny son or daughter; pregnancy had made her feel flushed with life, with purpose.

She'd already lost enough, sitting on that hospital bed, her gown saturated with blood. She'd lost her baby and she didn't want to lose Clive, so she'd pushed him away instead. She'd been a lawyer for long enough for love to become a distant thing, even if it hadn't gone completely as it had from the rest of Chambers, and it wasn't so difficult, to convince yourself that a man was only another complication.

You told yourself that love was disposable; you hardened your heart, and then love tore you apart. Again, always the again. Over and over.

And still the music. _You cry out in your sleep_. She wished she'd chosen something different, something that meant less.

"No, I can't," she said, when he leant in again.

He jumped away like she had thrown scalding water over him. She'd once defended a man who'd run a bath so hot that the skin on his girlfriend's feet had literally fallen away when she'd climbed into it. He'd got off, she'd got him off; she'd seen his reunion with the girl outside the court, the way he'd stooped down to kiss her in the wheelchair. For months the press had hounded him and all that time he hadn't been able to feel anything in his fingers. Martha couldn't remember the name of the disease now; it had been so long ago, a snapshot of one day in seventeen years. Innocent until proven guilty, always.

"Stupid idea, stupid. I shouldn't have said anything."

He was rambling in the general direction of her feet, a flush rising in his cheeks. And that was how she knew. Clive did not do embarrassment, not ever, not when he'd broken his leg in that _fall _in Chambers, not when Billy had discovered him with one woman or another in the office. The hurt in his features, the way they were fitting slowly together like a jigsaw as he processed the rejection, told Martha that he really, truly loved her.

"I do want– I just–"

"Just bad, with us working together," he mumbled, wiping his arm across his lips like he was trying to rid himself of her. Where she tasted tobacco and disbelief, what did he taste? _And there's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold._

"No. No, I'm just–" I'm just scared. "What did you want to call the baby? You know, when I first– when you first knew? Did you have a name?"

"Miss," Billy called from the end of the corridor, striding up to them and dipping his head slightly at Clive, "Mr Reader, Sir. Miss, I'm sorry about your case."

"They were bent, Billy. They were lying through their teeth the whole way through."

He saw the frustration bubbling up inside of her again, like he saw everything else, and he reached for the hands Clive had held moments before. His hands were mercifully cool and he held her fingers lightly, tenderly, like he was worried they might snap. "I know, Miss."

"I wanted Billy to be a godparent," she told Clive, who was leaning motionless against the wall behind the senior clerk, "I was going to ask him, I never got the–"

"Oh, Marth," he whispered, as Billy said, "Oh, Miss."

"Sorry. I'm sorry."

"I always liked Lily, for a girl. And Thomas for a boy. I know it's a little bit mainstream, but it's a good, resilient name, it's–"

Martha, through dampened eyelashes, saw Billy's forehead crumple with concern. Martha crying was bad enough, but Clive tearing up as well was catastrophic, he couldn't manage two at once. They were both so strong and inside they were both falling apart, they had been for a long time._ Just that something so good, just can't function no more_.

"What on earth is that music?"

Her laugh spluttered a little bit. Her head was so full of the people she'd let down and the people she'd fought for even when they didn't deserve it and the people she wanted to love but couldn't quite bring herself to. She had to lean her head on Billy's shoulder to regain her balance and then she felt another warmth at her side and she was enveloped between them, Clive and Billy, sniffling into the folds of their coats.

"It's not always easy, Miss, I'm the first one to accept that, but we get up and we fight for another day. We always will, it's in our blood."

"Clerking doesn't deserve you, Billy. You should– you should have a PhD in philosophy."

"Thank you, Miss."

"Billy, would you mind if we–" Clive gestured to the outer door at the end of the corridor, finding Martha's hand again.

"Course not, Sir, as long as neither of you do anything you're going to regret." Billy pressed the flat of his hand against Martha's back momentarily and then he surrendered her to Clive. "You make sure to look after her, Sir."

"Quick, before he starts one of his I'm-proud-of-you lectures again."

"Thank you, Sir."

Martha smiled and allowed Clive to link her arm through his as they went outside, so that he was supporting her. "I like Thomas too." Some more tears fell despite her best efforts to hold them back, and they held each other for a while, the darkness still and empty and profound after the pounding of the music inside.

Clive was everything she needed, someone she could mummy when he did something wrong, someone who would hold her and tease her. He would defend her as vigorously as he knew she would defend him. It wasn't always easy, Billy had never been more right, and that was why they needed one another, because they both understood that.

"I love you, Martha Costello."

She pressed her lips to his. "I love you too."

And love would always tear them apart, again, and they would come back together.


End file.
